Test wet commodities for dry matter level

If you buy wet commodity feeds without running a dry-matter test on them, you could be getting less dry matter than what you paid for. “This is so costly on a dairy,” says Manuel Soares with Valley Agricultural Software in Tulare, Calif. Here are some helpful hints to avoid overpaying:

• Periodically test the delivered feed yourself, and request that your supplier do the same. Then, take the average of the two tests to find the dry-matter percent of the feed.
• Request that your supplier give you the cost per ton on a dry-matter basis, not on an as-fed basis.

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